Tim Siadatan On The Cult Of Padella And Launching A Third Restaurant

Cult restaurants come and go, but Padella is one that has stood the test of time. Nearly a decade since the pasta bar opened in Borough Market, queues wiggle round the block every day of the week, while the second, larger branch in Shoreditch is always full. Diners flock from afar to try the legendary pappardelle beef shin ragu, which is no doubt one of London’s most sought-after dishes. And now co-founder Tim Siadatan is giving fans a chance to recreate Padella’s magic at home with his brand-new cookbook. 

Siadatan first sprung onto London’s culinary scene in 2010 with Trullo, a restaurant in Islington which he launched alongside business partner Jordan Frieda. The premise was simple: high-quality, affordable Italian food, and it quickly became a neighbourhood favourite. A few years later in 2016, the duo decided to expand their repertoire with Padella, a casual pasta restaurant inspired by their trips to Italy. 

Word quickly spread and before long Padella had become London’s hottest Italian eatery, sparking a new trend for small plates-style pasta. Over the years it scooped up a string of awards including a Bib Gourmand from the Michelin Guide, an accolade given to restaurants which offer great value and great taste, with a second branch arriving in East London in 2020.

As the restaurant approaches its 10-year anniversary, Siadatan decided to mark the occasion by releasing a recipe book. ‘We’ve been asked a handful of times over the years to do it,’ he tells C&TH. ‘It’s coming up to 10 years, so it feels as though we’ve got enough under our belt to have something to say.’ 

Here, the chef-founder reflects on Padella’s long-standing success, shares insight into its signature dishes and reveals a third outpost could be on its way.

C&TH Meets Padella Founder Tim Siadatan

When did you first fall in love with food?

I didn’t grow up going, ‘I want to be a chef’, but I’m from a family of six, and so being around a dinner table was very normal for me. My mum was a good cook, my granny used to grow everything and preserve and pickle, my dad owned restaurants, so I grew up understanding back of house in restaurants. I cooked a little bit more than other people, I suppose, when I was a teenager. 

But then I decided to apply for an apprenticeship scheme with Jamie Oliver at 15, and genuinely, I didn’t think I’d get on the course, but I did. That was the catalyst of me falling in love with food, and I loved every moment of it from that point onwards. Jamie taught me a lot, and that time really shaped a lot for me.

Why did you decide to open Padella?

We wanted to create a single item menu with pasta where it was affordable, it was quick and it was really high quality. That’s what the intention was then, and that’s still the intention now. We were fed up with the fact that, in England, pasta was sold everywhere – it might have been affordable, but it wasn’t very good. We thought we could break that mould by bringing our teachings and creating a format that would allow you to purely focus on pasta.  

What’s the most popular dish on the menu?

Pappardelle beef shin ragu, but a close second is pico cacio e pepe. Even on a hot day, pappardelle beef shin will sell more than anything else – which I still find bananas. I have tried taking it off the menu before, and we get an insane amount of complaints! Sometimes, you’ve just got to respect a signature dish, that’s been created by customers, and you’ve just got to honour it.

Your cacio e pepe is slightly different to the Roman version – what’s the Padella twist?

I’m very conscious that, in Rome, they’re very strict on Pecorino, pepper, pasta water, that is it. Ours has parmesan or pecorino or a mix, in the book I’ve said you can choose. And then we add some butter in, which for Romans is sacrosanct. I have Roman friends, and I’m like, ‘yes, I know, it’s not the classic Roman way of doing it’, but it just brings a bit of extra richness. And for people at home, adding the butter allows people at home who haven’t got the skill set to create it at home and it to be delicious. I wouldn’t say it’s a secret weapon, it’s a different version. But I’m very respectful and conscious to Roman friends, I’m not pretending to be making the Roman version.

What can we expect from the cookbook?

There’s all of the classics and the iconic dishes of Padella in there, the beef shin pappardelle, the cacio e pepe, then all of the seasonal ones, but the majority of the book is pasta I’m cooking at home. There’s lots of dried pasta, there’s soup, baked dishes, gnocchis. There’s something in there for everyone – lots of straightforward, easy, quick dishes that you can easily get your ingredients from a supermarket, all the way through to slightly more intricate, more gnarly ingredients for more confident cooks.

What’s next for Padella?

We’re looking to open a new Padella next year, that’s looking like it’s going to happen in central London.

What could the UK learn from Italian food culture?

Eat more regularly with family and friends at home. For Italians, eating is more of a ritual, it’s part of their culture to sit down at the dinner table with loved ones and regularly enjoy that moment of the day. It connects you on a human level, that’s important. Especially in this day and age when everyone is addicted to their screen, I think it would be a good lesson to go and put your phone down, turn off the UK for an hour and enjoy a meal and honour that moment.

How has the restaurant industry changed since you started out?

Well, firstly, there’s lots more, and the quality is much higher and the diversity is much broader. I really think you can eat any type of cuisine that you want to a high standard now in London. Those are the upsides.

The downside is that it’s increasingly more difficult to run restaurants in London and the UK because the staffing pool has shrunk, and it’s very difficult to find people to work in restaurants. That’s partly because there are a lot more restaurants, but partly because of, post-Brexit, post this new world we’re living in, and along with that, just lots of challenges of increased costs across the board. So it is a lot more difficult to run the business side of restaurants. Sadly, that is causing problems for a lot of people across the UK in our industry, and we are losing a lot of places because of it, which is a real shame.

What do you think of social media food trends?

It would be really disingenuous of me to say that I didn’t like them because one of the reasons Padella Borough Market was a hit was because it became a social media trend. That played a huge part in why we made such a splash, you need that in restaurants, you need something to get you going in those early months and early years. 

Top three places to eat in London?

The River Cafe, St. John, Bouchon Racine.

In-season ingredient you’re loving right now?

Summer girolles have just come in, wild mushrooms. At Padella we are very simply searing them, garlic, lots of parsley, a little bit of lemon juice, porcini stock and good olive oil, wrapped around fettucine.

How do you live a balanced life?

My life is in food, but I don’t get to cook like I used to. So when I’m at home, to be able to cook at a gentle pace for family and friends and my kids, is definitely something that sorts out my mental health. And then exercise is my absolute key, without it I definitely suffer, like most humans. I try on a weekly basis to get a few handful of workouts in, and play a bit of sport.

Most memorable meal of all time?

The Seahorse in Dartmouth, we had some absolutely incredible long lunches there, they start at midday and go on until 5pm, all the seafood that’s been taken off the market that morning then expertly cooking it over the grills.

Padella: Iconic Pasta at Home by Tim Siadatan is out 11 September (Bloomsbury Publishing, Hardback, £25). Photography by Sam A Harris.